Yeah! the camper is now a hunting blind and in situ but.........

We finally finished converting the old camper into a hunting blind for my husband. We had arranged for our neighbour to come and tow it with his truck to the spot where we wanted it set up. Just over a week ago on Sunday at 2pm.  The problem was we were working on it right up to the time he came to move it.  We didn't get the time to sit in it and admire our nearly 4 months of hard work.  We worked on it almost every day for all that time and then it was poof!....Gone!  I wanted to wallow in an bit of glory for at least an hour or so lol.

Here are some before and during the transformation pictures. For some obscure reason I didn't take any inside pictures, probably because it was really yuk!

We totally gutted the thing to the outer shell.  Everything came out of it.  The fixtures and fittings, the carpet, the walls, the ceiling and part of the floor which had been where the bathroom was as it had rotted.  We replaced that part of the floor then we added a subfloor for more stability and less noise when walking on it..

The exterior was in bad shape and we had to do some reconstruction and repair on it.  Then we took out all the existing windows and mad new push out solid windows.  We made every darned one of them and they were hard work.  We also had to replace a lot of the timbers and add new ones to strengthen it and make sturdier framework for the windows to slide into.

We insulated it, as you can see from the pictures there was not one piece that was the same as any other so every piece had to be measured and cut to shape.  We did the walls and ceiling and the wheel arches.  Then we had to put up the boards to cover the ceilings and walls and wheel arches.

My husband built a shelf and a rest in front of each window so he could put things on it and rest his rifle and crossbow on the rest. His illness has taken a lot of his strength so he is not able to hold the rifle or bow without support any more.

Finally the carpet went in.

So here are the 'after' pictures






We still have some work to do on the interior. trim to put in and the walls have to be camoflauged but we will pull it back in the Spring and do that, for now it is functional.

All the time we were doing the conversion my husband was camouflaging it.  It took a lot of time and a lot of paint but it ended up being amazing.

 

During this whole process I got to use some tools I have never tried before, the Rockwell Blade Runner and the oscillating tool. I never touched the table saw though, that thing scares me!

Our neighbour had sited the camper for us but it had to be leveled and we set about doing that but it was too much for my poor husband and he has hurt his back.

He has been able to hunt a few times but right now his back is too sore and he can hardly move.

Yesterday he managed to get up there so I could take photos.  I really hope his back gets better quickly.

As you can see we do have deer on the property.  My husband would love to get a buck and our supply of deer meat is about gone so we need the meat.